Steel Legion
An oddity among the Legiones Astartes, the Steel Legion stand apart from their cousins who pursue enhancement of the body, instead seeking to improve their minds by linking themselves together via a neural network that allows a Legionary to share information, images, even memories with a mere thought. Hailing from the remote world of Saepio, the Steel Legion seek not simply to secure Humanity's place in the Galaxy, but to rekindle the embers of Mankind's scientific wisdom for the betterment of all. The argent XVIIIth are led by their brilliant but distant Primarch Nomus Sardauk, a technological genius struggling to reconcile his cyborg nature with his longing to understand the Human condition. Denounced by some as more machine than man, Nomus's idealism and naivety would be manipulated by the Stormborn to trick him and his Legion into betraying those they once called brothers. Origins and History 'Inception and Unification Wars' As the XVIIIth Legion, the future Steel Legion was founded late in the Unification Wars, at a time when all that remained of these once monolithic conflicts were a few tiny wars of subjugation and the suppression of rebellions. As such, when looking for recruits for his XVIIIth Legion the Emperor cast his net far wider than he had when founding the earlier legions. Rather than simply drawing recruits from one region, such as the Vth and Jermani, for the XVIIIth the Emperor drew recruits from all of the great industrial cities of Terra: Detra, Thebes, Ur, Kart-hadash, Tenochtitla, Hattusa, Antyokka, Alexandrya, Delhi and Djakart. Together, these ten cities had a greater population than the rest of Terra combined and were home to enormous manufactories that churned out arms and armour for the Emperor's armies day and night. However, these cities were also home to another important commodity: manpower. In addition to and because of their giant populations, these cities were riven with violent gangs, whose wars were a part of everyday life in the lower levels and indeed, nearly every one of these cities' manufactory workers was part of one of the hundreds of gangs that made their kingdoms in the lower levels of these cities. As such, even once the Unification Wars were over and other nations began to lose their experienced warriors to old age, these hives were able to supply the Emperor with the battle-hardened manpower he needed for his legions. While some were used to reinforce other legions(notably the XVth and XVIIth) the majority of these new recruits would be used as the foundations of a new legion, the XVIIIth. However, during the implantation process it was discovered that there was a problem with the gene-seed of the XVIIIth legion. While it took more easily to the flesh of recruits who were borderline acceptable and so had a theoretically greater recruitment pool, it took less easily to recruits’ minds. Great willpower and strength of mind was required for the recruits mind to survive the process and if the recruit did not possess these characteristics, then they would go insane, their mind torn between themselves and their gene-seed. Because of this, the tests for aspirants who were to join the XVIIIth were made significantly more stringent than they had been, with more emphasis placed on strength of mind than strength of body. However, this had its disadvantages. In most legions, little was remembered of a legionary’s life pre-ascension. He was, mostly, to all intents and purposes a clean slate upon which the legion could build. Not so with the legionaries of the XVIIIth. While their strength of mind was necessary to survive ascension intact, it also meant that they remembered more of their life prior to ascension and things which had gone with it, gang loyalty foremost among them. In fact, not only did they remember them and still feel them, the battle for control of their minds that ascension forced them through often increased the strength of these feelings and memories. Yet for all these problems, the XVIIIth's founding did not seem particularly problematic, especially not when compared to the near extinction the XVth and XVIIth had suffered. The legion continued to grow at a steady, if relatively slow, pace and its recruits consistently performed better than average in training exercises where endurance and mental fortitude were required for success, leading the instructors overseeing such exercises to theorise that the XVIIIth would excell in siege warfare. However, the XVIIIth could not remain in training forever. At the frontlines of the nascent Great Crusade the need for legionaries was great and could not be fully satisfied by the existing legions. So, after many years of training and expansion, it was decided that the XVIIIth would finally be given a chance to prove itself under command of officers from the Ist legion. The battleground which would be the XVIIIth's proving ground was to be Jupiter. With Terra and Luna subdued, the legions had begun to spread across the rest of the Sol System, bringing its worlds into line one by one, either by force or through alliances, such as that forged between the Emperor and the Tech-Priests of Mars, exterminating any xenos presence they found. 'Compliance of Jupiter' Jupiter was one of the worlds upon which there remained a xenos presence, in Jupiter's case the deadly vapour wraiths. Therefore, a legion presence was required to annihilate them. However, given the nature of the battlefield,a gas giant, it may seem strange that the Emperor chose to send the XVIIIth rather than a tried and tested legion, such as the XVIth who thrived in such deadly battles. However, this misses a key fact which is that Jupiter was designed as a test of the XVIIIth's capabilities and so had to be challenging and there is no battlefield more brutal and unforgiving than that of a 3D battlefield. And tested the XVIIIth would be. The initial assault began well. Orchestrated by the experienced officers of the Ist, it took full advantage of the XVIIIth's unusual degree of small unit cohesion. This cohesion was direct result of the fact that the squads and companies of the XVIIIth were organized along gang lines, meaning that no extra work was required to breed into the XVIIIth a sense of loyalty to their squad and company brothers. Indeed in many cases they had been fighting alongside one another since the age of six, younger in some cases, scratching out a living amidst the slag heaps and slums of the lowest and most brutal levels of Terra's hives. As such, they pressed the attack ruthlessly, fighting as one with a practiced ease and determination to succeed. However, it was during these initial phases of the assault that the officers of the Ist first noticed an oddity in the XVIIIth: each unit was fighting individually. They didn't coordinate their advance amongst themselves. Every unit fought as if it was the entirety of the legion, paying little attention to its neighbours and the effect its actions would have on them. So, while the XVIIIth's small unit cohesion was excellent, its cohesion as a whole was non-existent. The result was a disjointed assault, moving forwards far faster in some regions than others and with units not reinforcing or supporting each other, each one fighting its own private war against the vapour wraiths. It was through this that disaster struck. The 1st Company had been fighting in the XVIIIth's vanguard and had taken heavy casualties because of it. However, through sheer bloody mindedness its legionaries had ground on and pushed forwards alongside their brothers, refusing to withdraw while their yet remained vapour wraiths on the field and, more importantly in their eyes, while their rival companies remained on the field. This would be exploited by the vapour wraiths who, being exterminated without mercy, launched a last desperate assault to try and force the invaders off of their home. The unit who would be hit hardest by this assault would be the 1st company. Barely above half strength, they fought with all the might they possessed and yet they could not alone turn back the tide and so, with an entire company at risk of being wiped out, the officers of the Ist issued orders that they needed reinforcement. Yet not a single squad from another company lifted a finger to help them. The orders were repeated twice more and twice more the rest of the XVIIIth failed to reinforce the Ist, who they saw as their rivals. So it was that the few Opsequiari assigned to the XVIIIth drew their weapons and the executions began. While many Opsequiari had the XVIIIth turn on them once they started to execute legionaries, a few accomplished their role and the 1st company was reinforced by elements from several other companies. However, even then the lack of legion wide cohesion was evident, as many legionaries paid little attention to whether they were hitting members of the 1st Company or vapour wraiths, forcing the Opsequiari to make several more executions. Eventually the vapour wraiths were driven back and destroyed. However, the 1st Company of the XVIIIth legion had perished along with them and while it had accomplished its objective, the XVIIIth had failed its first test as a legion. 'The Emperor's Judgement' Following their failure on Jupiter, the XVIIIth Legion were taken back to Terra in shame, there to await the Emperor's judgement. That judgement, when it came, was brutal: decimation. They had failed to unite as a legion and so one in every ten of them, selected by ballot, would be beaten to death by his comrades. Yet, as if this brutal punishment weren’t enough, three more were heaped upon the XVIIIth. The first was that they would no longer fight as a united legion. Because they had shown that they were incapable of fighting together, they would be broken up into numerous smaller units which were then often assigned to other legions or smaller expeditions. The second was that their officers would not be their own. Instead, they would continue to be drawn from the Ist legion for as long as was deemed necessary. The third and most humiliating was that they would be assigned almost an opsequiarius for every squad and all of these opsequiari would hail from different legions. When the Emperor's Judgement was complete, hundreds of the XVIIIth had been killed by their own brethren and the legion's pride had been utterly broken. When the XVIIIth returned to the front, it was with the pall of the Emperor's Judgement hanging over their heads that made them virtual outcasts among the other legions. However, they rapidly proved their worth in these smaller units. As gangers in the hives that had been their home, they had often needed to work in the shadows to avoid the attentions of both other gangs and the Arbites. Once learned, this skill for moving unnoticed in the dark places of the world is not easily forgotten and the XVIIIth began to put it to use in service of the Emperor. Operating in advance of the legion to which they were assigned, the legionaries of the XVIIIth quickly became known for conducting special operations of assassination, sabotage and intelligence gathering, skills that were rare within the legions. While these skills were in great demand, as many compliances were brought to an early end by an assassination of a planetary governor or when the gates of a fortress were mysteriously thrown open from within, it also garnered the XVIIIth a reputation for callousness with regards to collateral damage. Many a time, still-inhabited hab blocks were brought down on columns of enemy armour or thermal reactors were sent into melt down, killing millions but causing chaos and seriously undermining the enemy’s defences prior to an Imperial assault. However, while their methods caused casualties to the civilian population, they saved countless numbers of Imperial troops and so were deemed to be justifiable by all but the most honourable. With this newfound role in the Great Crusade, the stigma of the Emperor’s Judgement that had hung over the XVIIIth legion since its earliest days began to fade and they began to be accepted by their fellow legions. This process was greatly helped when, in 826.M30, the XVIIIth was given the right to have officers selected from amongst its own ranks rather than those of the Ist. In this many saw the hand of Icarion at work, trying to mend the long-standing rift between the XVIIIth and Ist that had been caused by the practice of Lightning Bearer officers commanding the XVIIIth. While the heightened number of opsequiari remained, several other legions had similarly high numbers of discipline officers among their ranks, notably the IIIrd and XXth. The deep wounds of the Emperor's Judgement were beginning to be healed. This process was furthered once more when the XVIIIth was called upon to fight beside the Emperor and the newly discovered Alexandros Darshan Von Salim and his newly renamed Halcyon Wardens on Kressen. While not all the XVIIIth was present, it was the largest gathering of them since that first fateful attack on Jupiter, with around 17,000 being deployed to Kressen. There, alongside the Halcyon Wardens they fought a lighting campaign lasting barely three months, with the XVIIIth destroying routes of reinforcement and supply and opening the gates of fortresses to the Halcyon Wardens who then charged in in the armoured assaults for which the Vth was so famous. It was during this campaign on Kressen, that the XVIIIth first took up a name other than the XVIIIth legion: the Silent Choir. The name was supposedly given to them by Alexandros Darshan Von Salim, although some stories also attribute it to the Emperor. However, despite all this, there remained a bitterness in the Silent Choir. They were still not allowed to operate as a separate legion and were still required to remain attached to this legion or that legion. Because of this they were repeatedly forced to witness other legions discover their primarchs and then forced to obey these newly discovered primarchs, rubbing salt into the wounds caused so long ago by the Emperor's Judgement and the wound caused each time a primarch was discovered who was not their own. Yet one day, the Emperor called the legion together for the first time since the Judgement. The world over which they gathered was called Saepio. There he told them. Their penance was at an end. Their father had been found. 'The Steel Father' As had happened to all his brothers, Nomus had been scattered to the four winds by chaos. The world upon which he landed was called Saepio. This name, a bastardization of the Proto-Gothic verb “to think”, hailed back to the world’s earliest days. Unlike most of the worlds upon which primarchs found themselves, Saepio had not originally been intended as a colony. Instead, it had been a military installation, an entire world devoted to the creation and testing of new, ever more terrible, weapons of war. Yet at some stage its past it had been the site of an experiment that had gone horribly wrong, transforming the world’s surface into an uninhabitable hell hole. It was on this surface that Nomus crashed. Even for a young primarch, the world’s surface would be uninhabitable for more than a few days without protective gear. However, the young Nomus had barely taken a few steps from his pod when he was found by Saepian scavengers, drawn to his location by the crash. They had expected the wreck of a ship. Instead, they found a metal pod and a dazed, confused child, unprotected against Saepio’s radioactive winds. They took him in and took him back with them to their home: a sprawling slum complex many kilometres under Saepio’s surface. The people who had found Nomus were descendents of Saepio's earliest inhabitants, the military personnel and scientists who had overseen that last, dreadful experiment. They lived in massive slums underneath Saepio's surface, only going up to the surface to scavenge what machine parts they could from the ruined facilities on Saepio’s surface. Yet nonetheless, they had not completely escaped the effects of the radiation that swamped their world. Most were sickly, suffering from rad-lesions and similar ailments due to their long exposure to the radiation. They were also often malnourished, thin and stunted as a consequence. Because of their long existence underground, all had adapted to have pupils that were larger than those found in the eyes of normal humans in order to take in as much light as possible. Due to all these mutations and sicknesses, the Saepians of this lower caste, the Laborans, were obsessed with the machine, incorruptible and strong, compared to their flesh. Among them it was deemed a great honour to have been able to replace a limb with a bionic. It was among these people that Nomus began to grow to adulthood. However, as he grew older and his abilities became more apparent, he came to the attention of Saepio’s ruling class, the Prudens, or wise. Unlike the Laborans, the Prudens lived in floating sky cities, far above Saepio's hellish surface and in these cities they had "transcended" their humanity, integrating themselves into a vast AI network which they called the Overseer. Through this network, they ruled Saepio, each one of them having immediate access to all the information collected by the combined network, giving them an unrivalled vantage point from which they could observe everything that transpired upon Saepio. They used this to extract as much from the Laborans as they could, taking all the basic materials scavenged by the Laborans and giving them a drip feed of vital machines, water purifiers, solar power units and even medicine, in exchange. This exploitation enabled them to live lives of stupendous luxury in their grand cities in the clouds. However, all this brilliance was merely a mask. Underneath it all, the humans on Saepio was slowly dying. As a military installation, they had never been intended to function as a separate world and so had been heavily reliant on imports from off world. Following the catastrophe, all off world support had been withdrawn and so the Prudens had been forced into a desperate search for something capable of stopping the eventual dying out of human life on Saepio. While they had made progress, they had not found any definitive solution, only stop gap measures. Then they found Nomus and in the child’s remarkable abilities they saw the potential to finally stop the decay and death of humanity on Saepio. So, without thought for the child’s feelings or indeed that he had any, they took Nomus from the only home he had known outside his pod and integrated him into the collective as a central processing unit for the massive network. In the years after his integration, things seemed to look up. Materials were processed with a new efficiency, new places and methods to produce food found and the opulence in which the Prudens lived increased a hundred-fold. Yet at the centre of all this was Nomus, watching, waiting and learning. While his feeling were dulled by his new connection with the Overseer AI, he was still able to feel a sense of injustice, both at the task he was being called upon to perform, oppressing the Laborans for the benefit of the Prudens, and at his abduction from what had, until then, been his home. However, he realised that he could not fight the Prudens. Not yet. So for years he lay in wait, learning of them and observing, planning. Then one day, inefficiencies began to appear in the Overseer. Resources going missing or failing to be taxed off of the Laborans. More facilities given to the Laborans than necessary. Information regarding unrest among the Laborans “failing” to be acted upon. Through such seeming inefficiencies and glitches in the Overseer, Nomus managed to feed a spirit of rebellion among the Laborans and sure enough, after little more than a year of inefficiency within the Overseer, they rose up in furious revolt. With weapons cobbled together from scrap, they took the fight to the mechanical armies of the Overseer. Many times, these war-machines marched out against them yet always, they would make a crucial mistake, react to slowly to a battlefield development or leave an opening in their line, that led to them being defeated. Finally, the Laborans began to storm through the cloud cities of the Prudens, slaughtering their oppressors and discovering the machinery which had been kept hidden from them for generations. Finally, as they closed in on the last of these cloud cities, the Prudens within it scrambled, trying to man their defences or desperately trying to escape off world. Observing this, Nomus addressed them, stating "I am ðμþ-13768230/Ω, heart of the Overseer system. I have watched and now let it be known that I judge you guilty. I have decided that the following sentence is suitable: death." Following this announcement, he shut down all of the city's defensive systems and all ways of leaving it, trapping the Prudens and leaving them open to the sentence he had judged them worthy of, leaving it to be delivered at the hands of the Laborans. At the head of the Overseer, Nomus began to rebuild Saepio from the wasteland that it had been reduced to. However, barely had his work begun than Imperial vessels manned by elements of the XVIth legion arrived in the Saepio system. While Nomus was at first oblivious to their presence, as they drew closer to Saepio the long-range scanners of Saepio's orbital defences picked them up. Intrigued by the new arrivals, Nomus did nothing to impede them. Instead, he boosted the capacities of Saepio's comms interceptors and began to listen in on the Imperial’s inter-vessel communications. From what was intercepted, he deduced that not only were these vessels just the precursors to a larger force but they were also part of a larger human empire. He therefore took what appeared to be the most logical choice and sent them long range hails and entered into negotiation with the Imperium. For their part, the Imperials were eager to negotiate with the Saepians as doing so would save them the effort and blood of a full-blown invasion of Saepio. However, as negotiation became longer and more drawn out, Mechanicum analysis could find no discernible pattern in the negotiating stance of the Overseer like they would normally expect in an AI yet the capacities of the Overseer were far in advance of those possessed by an ordinary human or even legionary. It began to be whispered by senior figures in the Expeditionary Fleet command that this was no normal ruler or AI systems but one of the Emperor’s lost sons, a primarch. So it was that they sent word to the Emperor himself who made haste to Saepio to investigate these reports of a being far in advance of ordinary humanity. At his side came Icarion of the Ist, Pionius of the XIXth. Upon arriving over Saepio and engaging in negotiation with the Overseer, the Emperor was able to see not only that it was one of his sons but also which of his sons it was and so sent word that the XVIIIth legion was to join him in orbit over Saepio. However, during these negotiations it was not just the Emperor who discovered Nomus' origins but also Nomus himself. Shortly after meeting the Emperor, Nomus made the connection between his own peculiar abilities and the demi-godlike being who ruled the Imperium. Where some of his brothers fought their father, Nomus accepted his role and, with it, command of the XVIIIth. 'Reunification' Nomus had been found and the entire XVIIIth were gathered and eager to be led into a new and glorious age by their father. However, there would be no rousing speech, no joyous union of father and sons between Nomus and the XVIIIth. Instead, Nomus locked himself in his chambers aboard the XVIIIth's flagship and demanded that their entire service record be brought to his chambers. There he stayed, for weeks, reading through his sons’ history, analysing their strengths and weaknesses and ingesting every last morsel of information about them and what he found disturbed Nomus. While he fully understood the necessity of human emotion in warriors and its potential uses in binding legionaries together, his sons went too far, with their emotions seemingly clouding their judgement to such a degree that they had been incapable of fighting as a united force. Therefore, when he emerged from his chambers, Nomus did not announce any grand first campaign that he would fight at the head of his legion. Instead, he declared that their first action would be a training exercise upon Saepio’s surface. However, rather than show a reborn legion, this first exercise was a disaster. Far from curbing his sons’ inability to work together, Nomus’ presence fractured his legion even further as each company sought to bring themselves to his attention, leading them to expose themselves to excessive amounts of danger. It was this that lead Nomus to accept that his legion was fundamentally broken and could not be repaired without serious modification on a scale that he had hoped to avoid. Gifted with a unity of purpose and technique no other Legion could match, the Steel Legion earned renown through their precise coordination of tactics and their ubiquitous use of technology. To accomplish this unprecedented level of synchronicity, every single Legionary is implanted with a neural device attached to the spinal column at the base of the neck. It is through this implant that the Legion becomes connected with another in a sprawling web of information deemed the Collective. It is the Collective that allow the Steel Legionaries to communicate with near-instantaneous results, enabling the Legion as a whole to react to enemy movements and assaults with preternatural mobility or exploit enemy weaknesses on the offense. At the center of the Collective is the Primarch Nomus. An icon of cybernetics, at times Nomus acts more machine than man, detached from common humanity through his own symbiotic relationship with his implants. Yet, it is this very detachment that makes him both a formidable general and warrior who can see the battlefield unclouded by emotion or distraction. This tendency toward binary thinking would lead the Steel Legion and their Primarch on a strange journey where the first step would be abandon the Emperor's banner for the Stormborn's. Their infamy would begin with an ambush against the Void Eagles and only spread as the war escalated in the East. Legion Organisation and Structure The Steel Legion is heavily technologically aspected. But where others would be about physical enhancements primarily, the XVIIIth improve their minds. Every Astartes is part of a collective; sensation, information and even experience can be shared between members. As a marine falls, his consciousness is disseminated through this link so that the experience is not lost and as more marines in a unit fall the remainder become more and more effective. Eventually too few, or only a single Astartes is left. A single marine is given command of a new initiated squad so they can benefit from his experience. Units that have been whittled away and are too small for effective battlefield use are amalgamated with other likewise reduced units. Eventually over several repetitions of this process come out veteran marines who have the combined knowledge and experience of dozens and effectively have skills honed over hundreds or even thousands of battles. 'Specialist Formations' *'Praevians of the Steel Legion' - Many Legions of the Space Marines make use of Battle-Automata, indentured into their service by the Legio Cybernetica – some come to be considered as battle-brothers by the Astartes, especially in those Legions with a strong warrior-spirit or a close relationship with the Mechanicum. However, Battle-Automata – by their very nature – can never be integrated into the XVIIIth Legion's Collective. As such, the Steel Legion do not feel any kinship with indentured robots, let alone grant them the honour of being considered battle-brothers. This puts the Legion's Praevians in a singularly complex position: though they are part of the Collective, they are also connected to their Battle-Automata charges. Stimuli from both Astartes minds and Artificial consciousnesses coalesce in the Praevian’s brain, which can make it complex to focus on the immediate necessities. This problem was first identified at the battle of Khalastaer, as the three Praevian-led units of Castellax were misled by Eldar attacks falling in coordination on multiple parts of the Steel Legion’s lines, drawing fire from the Battle-Automata onto the Astartes’ own men. As a result, new Praevians have only ever been promoted from Legionnaires that have lost their entire squads but have partially ostracised themselves from the Collective in order to deal with their loss, in opposition to those who embrace the consciousnesses of the fallen when becoming name. *'Destroyers within the Steel Legion' - Within many legions, the destroyer cadre was a unit to whom assignment was a punishment. In this, the Steel Legion were no different from other legions. However, within their ranks assignment to the destroyer cadre bore an added weight. It has long been known that the rad weaponry carried by destroyers will, over time, gradually destroy both the equipment and body of the legionary carrying them. For a legionary of the XVIIIth, the same applies to their implants that connect them to the neural network of the Steel Legion, bond them to the collective. In a legion where, despite their reputation as machine men, brotherhood is held to be the highest human emotion due to the deep connection every legionary has to his brothers, to be cut off from this network and his brothers was a punishment without equal. Worse, the destruction of this link was not sudden. Instead it was gradual, a fading rather than obliterating of this connection, made all the more frustrating for the legionary undergoing it due to his helplessness to stop it. One legionary once likened it to watching a ship slowly vanish across the horizon and being unable to do anything but watch. Many legionaries were killed in action before their weaponry completely nullified their implants. However, those few who did and who made up the backbone of the XVIIIth's destroyers were cold, self-isolating individuals with little to fill the gaping hole their separation from the collective left. *'Omnia Reconnaissance Squad' - Very small (limited to 5 marines) units of sharpshooters. They all carry specialised Stalker-pattern Boltguns and have advanced training in cyber warfare. So much so that they can hack into and disable enemy buildings/vehicles on the field of battle. *'Aeterna Veterans' - The product of multiple cycles of squad mergings. They are highly skilled in all methods of combat and are highly versatile warriors. They move together instinctively able to cover each others openings in ways that no lesser warriors are able to emulate. 'The 51st Echelon' When the Stormborn commanded his legions to strike upon the loyalists during the operation that we will forever remember as the Day of Revelation, he ordered the Steel Legion to tackle the main of the Void Eagles, their fleet the only one able to compete with the Starborn's. Lesser detachments would be assigned to the Drowned, but there remained one formation that remained impossible to ambush: the 5th Fleet, a chapter-sized section of the legion, which had been unaccounted for in the five years before the Insurrection, rumoured to have been destroyed by unknown threats beyond the light of the Astronomicon. However, Sardauk could not simply assume that these rumours were true, as this would amount to leaving a potential threat in his back. To that end, he ordered the 51st Echelon — a company specialized in intelligence, and speculated to dabble in forgotten technology to better study their enemies — to scour the void beyond the Galaxy, cut out from the wider Collective in a hunt for the Sons of Nothingness. None knows for sure what happened to the 51st Echelon, but the bizarre armour patterns bore by Alavator's raiders upon his return to the Galaxy suggests that they failed in their mission. War Disposition strength and materiel here 'Legion Combat Doctrine' 'Tactics, Strategy & Warfare' The XVIIIth's tactics rely on a complex interplay of units of different specialisations acting in perfect concert to achieve their goals. However, one thing that is almost always a factor is the use of preliminary bombardments, either saturation or precision depending on the situation, to suppress and kill the enemy without risk to the Sons themselves. As such they have heavy artillery and naval elements allowing them to strike at some foes with impunity. Where such bombardments would prove ineffective the XVIIIth will engage on the ground. Here they do not focus on a single aspect of fighting, but use each unit to cover the weaknesses and blind spots of the others. Most marines show a greater propensity for ranged warfare, however whether this is due to some preference passed down via their cybernetic links or simple expediency is unknown. 'Specialty' Due to their ability to analyse their enemies quickly and accurately, fixed emplacements are especially vulnerable to the XVIIIth Legion, because they cannot adapt or change so breaking them is a simple task of applying sufficient force to weaknesses until they crack. The XVIIIth also specialise in the mixing of fleet and ground operations, their ships being in the precise place they need to fire lances or macrocannon shells into concentrations of the enemy. There is also an incredibly high incidence of cybernetic augmentation within the XVIIIth Legion. All Legionaries have some allowing access to a collective neural network allowing for instantaneous transfer of information during battle without that unnecessary speaking part. Others go further in an attempt to emulate their Primarch allowing them to act as nodes for their brothers, holding vast stores of knowledge on tactics or weapons for faster access when fighting. 'Legion Wargear & Equipment' *'An-temural Drop Pods' - Drop-pod bunkers. They don't carry marines, but can be shot into the no-mans land outside enemy defences in order to provide strongpoints and cover for besiegers. They can also be used defensively allowing for the rapid creation of fallback locations from which to defend against an advancing foe. Exemplary Battles 'Compliance of Epsilon-Theta' Although the benefits of the Steel Legion's unique neural network cannot be denied, much like the gene-seed, there is a level of risk associated when first integrating a new individual into the Collective. While the Steel Legion takes extreme care to minimize poor outcomes, Nomus Sardauk was unable to completely eliminate rejection incidents. For reasons that span biological to mental to simple error, there are a number of Space Marines who, instead of becoming connected, suffered repercussions. Although rare, legionnaires have been documented as biologically rejecting the implants as immune systems attack the foreign constructs. The most visible rejections belong to a group that has been nicknamed the Fractus. These are Astartes who, for whatever reason, mentally could not cope with joining the neural network. With shattered psyches, the Steel Legion re-purposes these extremely rare cases with more cybernetic implants that return a degree of combat ability, in essence, becoming Space Marine-level servitors. The one battle where the Fractus were deployed in force throughout the Great Crusade was the Compliance of Epsilon-Theta. A planet-wide dictatorship, Epsilon-Theta was ruled by a cruel tyrant named Anguis. To ensure his rule, Anguis had seeded his own palace with traps that would kill a trapped telepathic psyker in an excruciating manner. Whenever one of these telepaths died, they would unleash a psychic disturbance that would obliterate nearby minds. Since it was unknown if the Steel Legion's neural network or psyker contingent could accurately counter this danger, Nomus gathered what members of the Fractus available and deployed them in first wave of drop pods around Anguis' fortified palace, supported by precision bombardment targeting the more mundane defenses. The mind-damaged marines advanced as ordered into Anguis' sanctum. The tyrant quickly triggered his psychic bombs but to no avail. The Fractus' advance was finally put to an end when Anguis deployed his personal bodyguard. While retaining the endurance of a Space Marine, the Fractus were quickly outwitted and outmaneuvered. Yet, they served their Primarch's purpose with aplomb. As the last of the Fractus fell, Nomus personally led a second wave, which had been deploying while Anguis' warriors had put down the Fractus. The resistance almost instantly crumbled before the Son of the Emperor with Anguis executed in the dawn's morning light. Freed from their hated torturer, the rest of Epsilon-Theta gladly submitted themselves to the Steel Legion. 'Legion Gene-Seed' Both the Preomnor and Omophagea act at a diminished capacity within the XVIIIth and they are able to only gain extremely limited information through consuming a foe's flesh, also they are slightly more susceptible to poisonous substances than other marines. However their Sus-an Membrane seems to be highly responsive allowing even the most critically injured marines to survive the vital moments for their memories to be uploaded to the collective. 'Legion Beliefs' 'The Collective' Upon being accepted as a full Battle-Brother, every Legionary undergoes the process of receiving the cybernetic implants that allows them to become one with the Collective. These implants are small and non-evasive, designed to integrate into the human body as comfortably as possible. One side effect is a more logic-based mindset due to implants in the Frontal Lobe improving the brain's ability to process large amounts of information and puzzle solving skills, leading to the more robotic "inhuman" attitude. The risk that comes with the Collective is that of mental collapse, marines whose wills can't endure and minds can't adapt to the added mental weight of memory downloads and general information overload have their minds collapse under the strain. When this occurs the downloaded memories blur together with their own into an indistinct static of sensations, identities, names, faces, places, etc as the afflicted lose all sense of self-identity and become vegetables, only temporarily becoming animate again as certain stronger memories briefly rise to the fore of the marine's shattered psyche before fading. A few marines can be saved from this fate before they reach the stage of complete collapse, being treated/trained by Tech-Chaplains (specialist Chaplain/Techmarine hybrids) who help them piece together and reorganise the marine's mind within virtual simulations within the Collective. After Nomus was reunited with his Legion and introduced the Collective to his sons, he personally trained the first batch of volunteers on how to use it and then had them spread this knowledge to the next batches of volunteers before forming the specialist rank of 'Tech-Chaplain' from those Astartes who showed the most aptitude and understanding. These Tech-Chaplains are also the ones responsible for training marines in how to safely integrate into and utilise the Collective when they first receive their implants, Nomis himself founded and mentored this specialist group following the Collective's introduction into the Legion. Those who cannot be saved, known as the Fractus, are granted one last opportunity to fight, their bodies augmented with cybernetics that effectively turn them into Combat Servitors so they can seek an a honourable death in combat against the enemies of mankind, they are unleashed into battle in small units lead by one of the same specialist Chaplains. 'Notable Steel Legion Members' 'Legion Fleet' ''Umbra''-Class Intelligence Cruiser As the XVIIIth Legion favours a more cerebral style of warfare, their wargear and equipment tends to reflect the technologically advanced and sophisticated Steel Legion. Enter, the Umbra-Class Intelligence Cruiser, a rare (and highly secret) variant of Astartes Strike Cruiser custom-designed from the ground up by the formidable mind of Nomus Sardauk himself. The Umbra carries a lighter weapon loadout than it's sister ship, but that's just to make room for the advanced sensor suites, electronic warfare centres, hangar bays and emission heatsinks. All of these things make the Umbra a fantastic reconnaissance ship capable of slipping into hostile star systems and lingering there unnoticed for days before it needs to discharge it's built-up emissions, all the while remotely hacking into planetary networks, intercepting/decrypting enemy communications, covertly deploying Legion forces in-system (most often Omnia Recon Squads), the Umbra is even capable of launching crippling cyberwarfare attacks on other vessels in combat, leaving them completely vulnerable to capture or destruction. The Umbra's hangar bays are no bigger than a standard Strike Cruiser, however, that by itself is fairly impressive in scope given rapid deployment of forces is what Strike Cruisers are designed for. In addition given the Umbra's purpose it carries a full complement of gunships and drop pods, all of whom have been modified for covert insertions with similar stealth tech as the Umbra. 'Legion Relics' 'Legion Appearance' 'Legion Colours' 'Legion Badge' The Steel Legion's badge is a stylised representation of their Primarch Nomus Sardauk, facing fowards. The ancient Grecian symbol emblazoned upon the head represents the letter 'S' or Sigma. This symbol symbolises the sum of the XVIIIth Legion. The power of the 'Collective' is the sum of its individuals, and the Sigma symbol is the direct representation of this. 'Notable Quotes' Feel free to add your own 'By the Steel Legion' Feel free to add your own 'About the Steel Legion' 'Gallery' Steel Legion.png|Steel Legion iconography File:Steel_Legion_Legionary.jpg|Steel Legion appearance Category:Legions Category:Suzerainty